Hillary Clinton’s Team Is Wary as Bernie Sanders Finds Footing in Iowa

An Independence Day parade in Denison, Iowa, included a Bernie Sanders supporter on a tractor.Credit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

The ample crowds and unexpectedly strong showing garnered by Senator Bernie Sanders are setting off worry among advisers and allies of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who believe the Vermont senator could overtake her in Iowa polls by the fall and even defeat her in the nation’s first nominating contest there.

The enthusiasm that Mr. Sanders has generated — including a rally attended by 2,500 people in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Friday — has called into question Mrs. Clinton’s early strategy of focusing on a listening tour of small groups and wooing big donors in private settings. In May, Mrs. Clinton led with 60 percent support to Mr. Sanders’s 15 percent in a Quinnipiac poll. Last week the same poll showed Mrs. Clinton at 52 percent to Mr. Sanders’s 33 percent.

“We are worried about him, sure. He will be a serious force for the campaign, and I don’t think that will diminish,” Jennifer Palmieri, the Clinton campaign’s communications director, said Monday in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Some of Mrs. Clinton’s advisers acknowledged that they were surprised by Mr. Sanders’s momentum and said there were enough liberal voters in Iowa, including many who supported Barack Obama or John Edwards in 2008, to create problems for her there.

“I think we underestimated that Sanders would quickly attract so many Democrats in Iowa who weren’t likely to support Hillary,” said one Clinton adviser, who like several others spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly share views about the race. “It’s too early to change strategy because no one knows if Sanders will be able to hold on to these voters in the months ahead. We’re working hard to win them over, but, yeah, it’s a real competition there.”

Asked on Friday about the crowds Mr. Sanders was drawing, Mrs. Clinton seemed to walk a careful line with her answer. “Well, we each run our own campaigns, and I always knew this was going to be competitive,” she told reporters at an ice cream stand in Lebanon, N.H.

Photo

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced himself in Creston, Iowa, last weekend.Credit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Those who see Mrs. Clinton as being at risk in Iowa say she is still far better positioned to win the nomination than Mr. Sanders, who lags by double digits in Iowa polling. Mr. Sanders is an untested national candidate who has far less money than she does, and his self-announced “democratic socialist” leanings are anathema to many Americans. Mrs. Clinton’s advisers, meanwhile, have deep experience pulling off upsets and comeback political victories, and Mrs. Clinton often performs best when she is under pressure from rivals.

But a loss in an early state like Iowa would signal a vulnerability for Mrs. Clinton at a time when she has sought to unite the Democratic Party behind her candidacy, and especially to demonstrate to its restless liberal wing that she can represent their interests. A Sanders victory could also further energize his fund-raising base.

“Certainly she could lose Iowa,” said Joe Trippi, a veteran Democratic strategist who managed Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign. If that happened, Mr. Trippi said, “mostly they’d just have to ride out the punditry and people with their hair on fire” and go on to capture the nomination.

Mr. Sanders’s rising fortunes pose a bind for the Clinton team. Directly challenging the senator on his policies and record could elevate his candidacy, alienate some liberal Democrats and make Mrs. Clinton look anxious. Yet continuing the current strategy — vigorously courting voters while hoping they conclude that Mr. Sanders is unelectable — requires Mrs. Clinton to put faith in an Iowa electorate that snubbed her seven years ago, choosing Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards over her.

Whatever the outcome in Iowa, the Clinton campaign, which raised $45 million in its first three months, already is building a national infrastructure, with one or more organizers, at least temporarily, in each state.

Carter Eskew, a Democratic political consultant, said the strength of the Sanders candidacy should stop further talk of a “coronation” of Mrs. Clinton as the Democratic nominee. “From the Clinton perspective, Sanders has gone from an annoyance to a threat,” he said. “One consolation, Sanders won’t creep up on anybody anymore. The Clinton camp has time to adjust expectations, if not strategy.”

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Randy Black, left, and Dean Genth, supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton, with a cutout of the candidate at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines last month.Credit
Scott Morgan for The New York Times

Mrs. Clinton has also spent so much time at fund-raisers, most of which bring in more than $27,000, according to campaign reports, that she has not made as many stops in Iowa as her opponent. On Tuesday, she will hold events in Iowa City (where Mr. Sanders drew a crowd of several hundred in late May) and Ottumwa. In the coming weeks, she is expected to make more frequent visits to the state and hold larger events, delivering her message of lifting the middle class.

Her current team has been careful not to diminish the state’s importance and has been pouring in money and staffing. She has dozens of paid staff members there compared with about 20 for Mr. Sanders. “The caucus is about working hard, with humility, to engage Iowans” said Matt Paul, Mrs. Clinton’s state director for Iowa. To that end, the campaign has recruited volunteers to caucus for Mrs. Clinton in each of the state’s 1,682 precincts.

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“We take nothing for granted in Iowa because the caucuses are always such a tough proving ground,” said Robby Mook, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager. “But Hillary Clinton’s regular travel to the state and the organization we have established on the ground show how committed we are to prevailing there.” (A Vermont native, Mr. Mook has known Mr. Sanders and his organizing playbook since the 1990s and has been warning the campaign about his potential rise.)

Advisers to Mr. Sanders said voters flocked to his events because he offers ambitious proposals to major problems, such as his plans to eliminate tuition at public colleges, to reduce student debt and to spend $1 trillion on public works programs to create more jobs, though he proposed paying for them with huge tax increases. His advisers also argued that voters viewed him as willing to go further in championing significant tax increases for wealthy Americans to support programs to benefit low- and middle-income Americans.

“I’ve been struck by the large numbers of people who are saying they want to sign on the dotted line and support his campaign, organize their community, help in any way they can,” said Pete D’Alessandro, a veteran Iowa operative who is overseeing the Sanders campaign there.

His advisers dismissed any notion from Mrs. Clinton’s allies that she was anything but the clear front-runner in Iowa.

“That’s just political chatter and the usual tactics,” said Jeff Weaver, the senator’s campaign manager. “What’s important is what we saw at Bernie’s recent event in Wisconsin — a candidate speaking to the issues facing Americans, and 10,000 people coming out for it.”

While Mr. Sanders’s crowds make for powerful images, Mrs. Clinton’s allies pointed out that his largest rallies had been in handpicked locations like Madison, Wis., and Iowa City, where there are many college-educated white liberals, a demographic that represents his base. Mrs. Clinton draws stronger support from African-Americans, Latino voters and moderate voters.

Regardless, big crowds mean more cash for Mr. Sanders, who said his campaign had raised $15 million since April 30.

And Mrs. Clinton’s Internet fund-raising has room to grow as the campaign seeks to build its database of small-dollar donors, a tough proposition without big rallies. Of the roughly two million supporters from 2008, the campaign said, it has only about 100,000 active email accounts.

Jan Bauer, the Democratic chairwoman of Story County, compared Mr. Sanders to Mr. Dean, also of Vermont, whose antiwar liberalism took Iowa by storm in 2004 before John Kerry rallied in the final days before the caucuses and later captured the nomination.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen until you get to those last two weeks,” Ms. Bauer said.

A version of this article appears in print on July 7, 2015, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Sanders Momentum in Iowa Leaves Clinton Camp on Edge . Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe